Looking into the house from the porch side

Here’s some of the latest photos from the off-grid straw bale cabin site that we’ve been busying ourselves with these past few weeks. The earthbag stemwall is basically complete, other than the finishing details. Yep, there’s always something else even when you think you’re ready to move ahead. But things are shaping up nevertheless. Check it out…

Off-Grid Straw Bale Cabin Update

I like the topmost photo as it really conveys the complexity of the framing of the house. It’s a post and beam frame, with wood milled from on-site trees. The roof was of course the most challenging aspect, as it’s octagonal and includes several layers of material, including the decking, insulation, sheeting, and the metal roofing itself. The porch roof is framed directly off of the main roof, and it fans out from three sides of the octagon. Tricky stuff.

The earthbag stemwall supports the straw bale walls, keeping the bales high and dry

Four courses of earthbags brought us to the desired height of the stemwall, about 20″. Atop the earthbags sit a “traditional” straw bale toe-up, a combination of lumber and foam insulation that props the straw bales up off of the stemwall directly. You can probably tell than the toe-up extends past the stemwall itself. That will make more sense once I draw up the stemwall details and post them here. Expect that soon, hopefully.

Note the baseboard nailer, and separate pier foundation for the frame of the cabin

Here’s a more detailed shot of the stemwall from the interior of the home. As you can see, the post and beam frame has its own pier foundation just inside the stemwall. That means the stemwall is strictly supporting the straw bale walls, and the frame and roof load is transferred down to these piers. (The metal is just a concrete form that hasn’t been removed yet.)

Note also the baseboard nailer — that’s the 2×2 you see between the third and fourth courses of earthbags. It’s a 2×2 screwed to a 12″ wide piece of plywood, sandwiched between the bags and providing an attachment point for a piece of baseboard at the floor. That’s one of the tricks of using earthbags — figuring out how to make various attachment points for wood or flashing elements that are needed. You can exactly just bang some nails into the bags themselves and expect something to hold (or the bags to stay intact).

Clear roofing panels let light into the north porch living space

Here’s a look at the underside of the porch roof. The porch is on the north side of the home, and will serve as an outdoor cooking and living space. These clear panels do a really nice job of letting light in. They’re expensive, but effective.

The small off-grid cabin, tucked away in a clearing in the woods

And finally… a view from afar. You can get a sense of how well sheltered the house site is here, in amongst the trees on the hillside. Amazingly, despite all the trees it’s far brighter up here than down below at the owners’ current home. The dirt path on the lower left is actually a dam for a small pond (with grass seed just barely peeking through.)

In just another month the cabin will get the full straw bale treatment as the walls go up, windows go in, and clay plaster gets applied during our Straw Bale Workshop!